Patricia Mou

The modern man thinks that everything ought to be done for the sake of something else, and never for its own sake.

Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease and security, not of a life of arduous struggle

Remember, if you won’t quit, then the worst thing that happens is you die, so you can now enjoy the process of being on mission, all the highs and lows as they were meant to be experienced - at the pinnacle of life.

Acts of kindness, helping others, and going out of one’s way to be of assistance to those in need can, of course, increase the well-being of others. 

Working together can also be an extremely enriching and sobering experience. It is enriching because people learn, gain traction, motivation and a sense of meaning. It’s sobering because it provides a real-world test to the quality and strength of the coordination fabric your group has been building, stripping away the relative comfort of... See more

Note that seeking happiness as an end might be counterproductive. Many people report that constantly checking to see if they are happy actually decreases their happiness - a report that fits with the research on "flow." It may be better to seek some of the above goals as ends, and happiness will be a side-effect.

The non-linear approach is different – rather than trying to discover a particular arc path and follow it to its conclusion, it recognizes that there will be many different moments and opportunities to create meaning that arise in our life.